A 50:50 split of great girls and awful ones, with storylines/troubles varying from interesting to painfully dull, and with the best girls sadly not necessarily receiving the best storylines, making most of the arcs pretty average overall.

This show is a real waste of potential. Some of the girls are among the most realistic personalities I've ever seen in anime, and with an art style/character design befitting of girls nearing the end of their high school days. Then all it takes to ruin it is to insert a bread-and-butter cowardly MC who stutters and mumbles every line towards these girls and ruins the natural flow of their actions and conversations, leaving me wondering what on earth these girls see in him.

I gave this show a 6 because I felt that two of the arcs (Haruka's and Ai's) were done very well, of 8 standard, whereas the others were all 6s or so and the depressingly cliché MC holds it down from averaging at a 7, settling at a 6.

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I really enjoyed this series, but I don't think it's good. It was cliché ridden, full of stock characters and predictable situations. It didn't have a 'girl who can't cook' situation (my biggest pet hate), but it did have nosebleeds which are right up there on my list. The main reason I was able to enjoy this show was because I hadn't seen most of these clichés in so long (a year or so) that they could make me laugh again, even if just at how stupid and obvious they were.

It's a half-way series between Hagure Yuusha~ and the likes of Amagami SS. The MC was mostly beta but not ridiculously so (his VA helped a lot with making it less grating), the ecchi was there but not a huge component (though that might have improved the series, given its formulaicness), the girls liking him was mostly justified. It was nice to have a girl in love with a side character (Washizu), and for that side character to not give up on his interest in the main girl (Ibuki), despite her not being interested. It's frustrating when characters 180 at the end of the series to give it a happier ending. Perhaps the manga/LNs will go/have gone that route, but the anime maintained a higher believability by not doing so.

In summary, I enjoyed it, but had I watched it during my previous anime-heavy viewing experience I probably would have found it too un-imaginative, lacking pay-off (no real character development towards the end, no ecchi) and would have either dropped it or given it a lower rating. I'm glad I watched Hagure Yuusha first - I'm not sure I would have kept going if this was the first series I tried.

Downloaded Episodes: 5

Despite hating the art style and mechs (usually both deal-breakers for me) I absolutely loved this show. There were so many twists, turns and revelations, the plot's pace was virtually perfect and nothing dragged out too long.

I originally tried to watch it with Ed and we ended up dropping it at episode 12, and I didn't go back to it for perhaps 18 months. When I returned I blazed through it in a day despite being in an anti-anime frame of mind at the time. Though I enjoyed it massively, it didn't resonate within me the way a lot of the other shows I rated 9 did. I can't imagine myself re-watching this with nostalgia flowing through my veins as a 30 or 40 year old the way I can with Spice and Wolf, Zero no Tsukaima, Fullmetal Alchemist, Toradora etc. I feel when I watched this at 21 I was nearing the end of the window where I would really enjoy it. Still, the fact remains I enjoyed it greatly and even if it doesn't have the nostalgia factor it's an amazing series and will likely remain my favourite mech series of all time, given how few of them I give a chance to impress me.

The first anime I watched as an anime, pushed upon me by Justin back in 2009. At the time I really had no concept of what anime was, and this show instantly changed my mind about its potential.

Begins as the best anime, and one of the best stories of any media I've read, quite possibly -the- best. It slightly cheapens itself with the introduction of Misa as fanservice, but the added complexity a second kira brings more than makes up for it. It's not until the Yotsuba Group that the decline becomes apparent, as the show starts to focus on weaker characters, with L and Light working earnestly together and no real mind games for half a season. Luckily, the pay off for the Yotsuba Group arc is more than sufficient; and is one of the greatest examples of pay off I've seen across all mediums.

Sadly, at this climax among climaxes, the show plummets. With the exit of L and introduction of Mello and Near the show nosedives below mediocrity into cringe-worthy quality, a fall from 10/10 to 3/10 in the space of 2 episodes. The show never regains any good momentum. This final arc proceeds to betray Light's personality and decision making processes, to stretch suppositions far beyond reasonable measure and to never deliver the pay off the fans deserved.

I still enjoy the show as a 25 episode series, but it will never be the same knowing what lurks in those terrible final 12. The biggest waste of a good story I've ever seen.

Surprisingly good.

The budget is really low and the art-style is verging on completely amateur, which is a little strange when one of the focuses of the show is mocking two of the main characters for not being able to draw.

The jokes were funny, and thanks to the series' short length were able to escape becoming too stale, despite being repeated a lot as the show went on. A lot of the characters were stock, but the setting was a unique one and the plot was actually fairly progressive for something so short.

The only thing I really didn't like was the pair of pants that were dancing around the frame (albeit somewhat discreetly) in most of the scenes of the show, and I especially didn't like his dance in the ED for some reason. Thankfully he was not focused on and the characters never acknowledged his presence, so he didn't really spoil it for me in the end.

Overall it was an enjoyable, but probably forgettable, experience - but one I don't regret having. There are worse shows I could spend my time re-watching in the future, and I may well end up giving this a second run-through some day.

This is such a hard show to review, and the criteria for what determines a show's score greatly changes what score this show receives for me.

If I base a show's score on a straight viewing of the series, this show gets a low score. There are so many filler episodes, many of which occur during the climaxes of the series. There are so many pointless characters we have to watch develop who will never really make a difference, and a few entire story arcs which are just completely uninteresting.

If I base it on what I can get out of the series by watching it as I see fit, it gets a great score. The highlights of the series are truly incredible, and some of the fights are among the best I've ever seen in anime. The barrier-breaking transformations get my blood going even after so many viewings over the years, as do Vegeta's epiphanies of Goku's strength throughout the show.

Ultimately, I've enjoyed the series so much and watched my favourite parts so many times I'm inclined to give it the high score. I've simply been given too much enjoyment from the series to give it the low score it would get from a straight viewing. I really believe Dragonball Z is in some ways a completely unrivalled series, it's just a shame it's so badly let down in others.

The first show I watched after my almost year-long break from anime, and I couldn't have chosen better. The storyline wasn't the most solid, and a lot of it was just set-up for potential future series, but in a show like this the story isn't the most important thing. It's all about setting up for either badass heroics or genuinely fun ecchi antics.

I was so sick of shows with pathetic beta MCs, or on the other end the nose-bleeding perverts who just leave you wondering what the girls see in them. Akatsuki is strong, confident, brave, caring - the full package of a likeable protagonist. It actually makes sense for all of these girls to be after him, and he doesn't obliviously avoid it, for the most part he knows it and has fun with it. I don't think I've ever seen a show handle a harem as well as this one. The ecchi scenes were also some of the best I've seen, in set-up at least. It wasn't just a compilation of him accidentally walking in the room with girls getting changed, girls accidentally losing their clothes or imagining things - it was him intentionally being in the shower, or the dressing room, or him intentionally stripping the girls and enjoying it. I don't know why more shows don't go down this route, it's funnier and more evocative. He's also one of the most inspiring overpowered characters, the only one in my mind who is more so is Oga (Beelzebub), but that show becomes so poor that he fades away into 60 episodes of mediocrity.

I marathoned this in one sitting without even intending to, wasn't remotely fatigued and feel thoroughly inspired to really give anime another try. I could not have picked a better show to get me going again.

A real waste of what I think is a potentially amazing sci-fi storyline. If this was made as a 2 hour film with a decent budget and voice acting I think it could have been one of the all-time greats, but as a low-budget, 25 minute piece it really just doesn't work.

It's generic, it's cliché, it's predictable and it's drawn out - but it's great.

I used to get irritated at shows for not trying to do anything new, for using stock characters and plots and jokes we'd all heard a thousand times before, but I see the light now. Even with all of that against it, it doesn't have to be bad.

Kaichou wa maid-sama takes all of the tropes we know and love/hate from the Shoujo romance series and combine them in such a way that it's not irritating, the characters are endearing and the snail's pace of plot progression is somehow forgiveable.

The lead male, Usui, is a typical superhuman mysterious hunk who is, somewhat unjustifiably, obsessed with the protagonist, Misaki, a headstrong but somewhat oblivious girl who gets herself into sticky situations which Usui miraculously appears in to save the day. It's really predictable stuff, and it never really tries to mix things up, but somehow it just works. It stays enjoyable right through to the end and I would happily welcome a second season of the same quality and pace. I think the one thing it does differently is that it does give the lead female something of a personality. She does not simply blush and nod throughout the series or her interactions with Usui, but rather fights back as much as possible without being stupidly tsundere about it. The series has great timing of when and where she should let her guard down a little, giving me just enough to keep me interested without making it too frequent to excite me.

If no more of it is made then I'll be disappointed that the only route to learning of Usui's backstory is through the manga - but since the manga does exist and does cover it to some extent it lessens the disappointment of the anime avoiding the topic. It certainly had time to do so, but I'm guessing the series was either not developed enough at the time, or the producers hoped to spur interest in the manga from those who wanted to know more.

I really want to like this show. I don't think it's particularly cliché, and is the most original harem series I've seen, with a protagonist unlike any I've seen before and a harem that actually makes some sense, but still I just can't like it.

I just don't believe that the girls would like Keima so easily. I don't root for anyone, or pity them through their heartbreak. I just couldn't get invested in the show. Maybe it's the quite bland, generic art style, or how boring the scripts are most of the time. Keima rarely fails, and everything always goes roughly according to his plan to the point that I don't find myself worrying about unexpected twists. He gives this assurance, yet isn't admirable in the way other MCs that have this assurance tend to be, making for an awkward half-way hero/underdog.

I also find the storyline of the loose souls, vintage etc really uninteresting. In the first series I feel they made the right call - it being nothing more than a quick plot device to force Keima to pursue the girls. In this season the politics, wars and ancient past of this world all come to the fore, and since I never cared about any of it to begin with it makes for a thoroughly uninteresting 'climax' to the show.

I think this show falls a little short in every area, and the end result is just utterly mediocre. The voices, art, scripts, settings, characters, storylines, pacing etc are all just not quite good enough, and when all brought together makes a product just not worth getting excited about. I'm really surprised the series is rated as highly as it is by others.

A quick kudos to the show though, a well done bad ending. I think it was a really good choice to have the master of conquests ultimately fail at the one he really cared about. Nice to see a studio willing to do that these days. They also keep Keima's view consistent - once it doesn't involve him, he doesn't care. He did his part and happily let the others take over and save the day, and the show didn't suddenly become hinged on Keima to pull some deus ex machina feat to save the day. I really like the thinking of the author, just not how he delivers his ideas perhaps.

On par with the first season. I'm not sure why I originally stopped following this as it was airing, because I found myself totally engrossed in it the second time around.

While I was very happy with the plot progression and the new characters introduced, I was sad to see much less of serious Ryuu, whom I thought was comfortably the best character of the whole show.

It seems pretty likely that there won't be any more, and I'm okay with that. It had a satisfying conclusion and I think 37 episodes is enough.

Really disappointing. The voice acting was so flat, unbelievably so, and it took all of the emotion out of every scene that was supposed to be tense. The whole film just seemed to drag despite the story being interesting enough.

The character art is an improvement over Voices of a Distant Star, but not by an enormous amount. Poor art and awful VAs killed this almost on their own. The backgrounds looked great, though. Exactly the same quality as 5cm per second, though the two don't have much creativity that separates them. They use the same lens flare and ultra-realistic close-ups of inanimate objects which gives it a very similar feel.

The motivations of the characters weren't really explained, nor why Sayuri is linked to the tower the way she was. The war isn't fleshed out at all, just a premise left as a vehicle for plot without any information to make us feel involved in it. I didn't feel attached to the characters, didn't understand why they were doing what they were... it just failed across the board.

Voices of a Distant Star felt like something with great potential that was squandered, and it was sad to see because of that. This film seems like a bad story delivered poorly, and I'm not sad because, besides background art, I'm not sure this film had any potential to waste to begin with.

I'm a big fan of this series. Despite it being the fourth season with really no new jokes injected since the first season, it holds up so well. It's refreshing to watch a show that doesn't rely on so many of the common tropes (girl who can't cook, rei clone, perverted guys etc). It's also nice to have a show with good integrity. There are perhaps 30 seconds of questionable camera angles in the series, but overall it's very wholesome. Besides the second season the whole show never tries to exploit the virtually all-female cast, which is much appreciated on my part.

This season did lack wholesome family episodes, though. Most seasons of this series had a few warm and fuzzy moments which I didn't really feel here. Overall, this season felt the most like season 1, which is nice after all the studio switching and art directions the show has been in over the years. I'd say this series has the best artstyle too, trumping the first season despite the lack of bible black faces. I'd definitely be up for another season, and a re-watch of this one in the future.

It was of the same quality as any normal episode of the first season. While that is a compliment, it's not a complete one. Mushishi's strength lay in consistent high quality with episodes of pay-off delivered right when I needed them (potential love interest, how he lost his eye, childhood backstory).

As just a normal episode, I don't know what it is about this one that made them choose it to adapt as a special. At first I thought the girl would be in a similar situation to Ginko, and we might learn more about Ginko as the two discussed things together. Instead it was unrelated, and the episode went along as any normal one would, except lasting twice as long.

I enjoyed it, but I wasn't blown away by it. If it was slotted inside of the first season, I wouldn't have batted an eye (besides the HD quality).

Surprisingly good fun. It was pretty unpredictable and did some things I'd never seen in anime before (including a middle finger gesture), which was refreshing enough to surprise me into laughter. Watching it all sewn together into one piece worked well, the pace was good and only one or two of the sketches were boring. The main girls' character designs were surprisingly cute, too.

I actually really enjoyed this at first, probably to a 7 or 8 standard. I like having overpowered protagonists, and the whole club is fairly likeable. The problem came with overexposure to a game I don't understand (and which is too complex to be quickly learned) and in the fact that the game comes down to luck a lot of the time.

The show quickly devolved into a power-level type format with a new, stronger boss appearing every few episodes - all of which had an episode devoted to fleshing out their character (in a very soulless clockwork fashion) and which explained their special power, for example a girl who felt invisible in her every day life was able to use long-term strategies during the game and somehow nobody noticed because of her ghost-like power.

The biggest problem was with how luck-based mahjong appears to be. Most of the battles relied on the players apparently psychic abilities to predict which tiles would come up next, resulting in a constant back and fro of deus ex machinas which swiftly lost all meaning and removed all of my interest as every strategy the players used would end up heavily relying on this luck to win the game for them.

A lot of the characters were stock with very simple solutions to their character flaws, allowing the protagonists to win and move on, while rebuilding the self-esteem of their opponents.

To finish it off the climax of the tournament was around 5 episodes before the end, after which there was a solo's tournament with much lower stakes, but more of the same battle format of which I had grown so weary. While I list this as a completed series I ended up skipping through all of the matches for the final story arc - there was just no point watching something knowing that deus ex machina would save the day every time.

This was really different... I'm not sure what rating to give this anime yet, and I'm hoping by writing feelings about it it becomes clearer how I really thought about it.

The setting is really well done - it's one of the most immersive series with regards to its period - the only one I can think of that's of a similar strength being Ikoku Meiro no Croisée. It's nice to have a series set in samurai Japan that actually feels like it, something far rarer than it should be. The music (though not the bizarrely upbeat OP and ED) was really fitting as well, and did a lot to further improve the atmosphere of the show. The art style was strange, making almost all of the female characters pretty ugly and most of the males pretty odd-looking too, but on the whole it worked quite well. The buildings and backgrounds were drawn beautifully and realistically, unlike the art style of the characters. I would list the art style as a positive of the series.

The most confusing thing about this show is its protagonist. The show has a simple storyline, a few plot twists and reveals, but none of which really involve him. He's not particularly interesting, is at times frustratingly timid and his downtrodden attitude keeps the gang from ever feeling really gang-like. The entire plot could have been altered to not include him at all in the space of a few minutes.

The show has a very slow pace, but due to how well the setting is done it isn't frustrating or boring. There is very little to no action; most of the gangs activities occur off-screen, and the very few sword slashes and stabs there are all happen off-camera. There is plenty of seemingly pointless plot throughout the series - a lot of the things the protagonist does and things like the introduction of his sister which don't really serve any purpose to the advancement of the story, and don't even flesh out any of the characters particularly. Despite the slow pace and, at times, meandering story telling, the pay off is good, and I found myself gripped by the reveals as we learn more about Yaichi, even though looking back they were really not surprising at all. Before I'd seen the show I'd heard people talking about how the first half was just build up to the more explosive second, but to me the plot stayed pretty slow and calm throughout with only a few scenes of no more than two minutes where anything really happened.

I'm glad I watched it, and I enjoyed myself in a strangely calm way (a little similar to Mushishi), but I don't think of it as a masterpiece, though nor as a failure. It's an artistic experiment that I'd call a success. If the protagonist were a more active participant and more likeable, and if the story had a little more substance to it then I think it could have been fantastic, given how well done the setting was. I think I would enjoy a re-watch in the future - it could be quite interesting to watch with the knowledge of Yaichi's history.

I had stayed at my Stepmother's house to kitten-sit, with the guise that I would spend the week studying for my upcoming re-try at my AS Level exams. In reality I set up a 'base' in the kitchen almost as soon as they left, with three chairs aligned and pillows strewn along them. I watched this show and Welcome to the NHK over the course of a couple of days with lights off and curtains drawn, ignoring the kittens and drifting in and out of sleep. I feel a warm nostalgia recalling it now, though it was a pretty low moment in my life in some ways, it's nice to remember a time where I really cared about anime (or anything, really) with such passion.

Shame the show was boring with a lack of pay-off...

I respect this show for trying something different - even if it was something very lowbrow. It didn't really work, but I still like that someone was willing to try a different style of show.

I feel like of all of the 4-koma adaptations that I've seen so far, this one felt the most rigid. They did very little to pad each strip out, with each scene being only a minute or shorter - which while it may be faithful to the source material (assuming it is), is actually quite jarring. It feels like the show never gets a good rhythm going because of the constant stop-start pacing dictated by the strict adherence to the 4-koma style of joke.

As the show went on the jokes stayed the same. Exactly the same. I don't think they added a single extra joke as it went on. Suzu is short. The president is obsessed with masturbation and sex. Aria is innocent but also perverse at the same time. The journalist is stealthy and loves to misinterpret what she sees. The teacher is attracted to young boys. They didn't even do much to intertwine their jokes (a problem of the 4-koma style), they simply always found a way to insert their completely standard joke into each conversation they were in. Every episode was exactly like the one before it, just perhaps with a different background if it was Christmas, a beach or a mansion.

For the first couple of episodes it was interesting. The character types weren't ones I'd seen before, and the jokes were different to anything I'd heard in anime before - but if they're going to use the same jokes so much that it feels just as stale as any other formulaic show by the end they might as well have not bothered with the different approach. If this had been made much shorter, or they'd tried to deviate from the straightforward jokes it could have been a really good comedy, but it wasn't.

Nothing else happened either. No dramatic events and only the smallest character development in one character throughout the whole show. None of the scenes were particularly memorable because all of them used the same jokes - I watched it all within the last 24 hours and can barely think of a single scene, it's all melted together into one blob of sex jokes in a high school. The only thing I'm really grateful for (besides the nice art style and character designs) is the MC, a true straight man, seemingly unphased by the girls perversion most of the time. Had he been the gibbering coward I'm used to seeing in a show with a predominantly female cast this show would have been truly terrible. He wasn't spectacular in any sense though, and nowhere near enough to turn this into a good show.

This show was a real surprise. I didn't even pick it up when it first started airing despite being in a fairly lacklustre season, both the plot summary and the art work put me off without a second thought. It wasn't until I saw a picture on /a/ of Toshio with his wife in the hospital that I knew I was missing something great. I think it was actually perfect that I joined in when I did. I didn't have to sit through 3 months of slow build up once per week, which might have caused me to lose interest, but I did get to "suffer" through the cliffhangers at the end of the episodes towards the end, and I can still feel how intense the excitement was 2 and 1/4 years later.

It's a shame this show has such an "out there" art style. I don't think it adds to the atmosphere of the show much, but it does raise the barrier of entry from outsiders to veterans, even though as far as plot goes it's probably the most newb-friendly series I've ever seen. Having said that, I don't think it hurts the show, it's just part of it. It's only the hair, really. The facial expressions are pretty normal. You get used to the hair and don't even think about it after a few episodes.

The plot's pacing is pretty good, the show is divided into two sections, the first is investigative and slowly revealing what exactly is going on in Sotoba, and then once all is discovered the pace explodes into almost non-stop action scenes, and keeps this pace up for almost half of a season. The first half has a great horror vibe, and I was surprised at how creepy it could feel despite being anime (my prejudices never seem to fully fade). Having the atmosphere set so well made the second half that much more exciting too. It wouldn't have had anywhere near the impact it did without such a good and lengthy lead-up.

I wasn't crazy about the ending for Natsuno and Tatsumi, it felt like something cobbled together in a few minutes, and I haven't read the novels or manga to see whether it's an adaptation or a new invention. The ending otherwise is good, and personally I see Toshio as the main character so having something of a side character's ending be less than perfect is not enough to ruin the show.

As far as plot goes I'm certain I'll want to re-watch this in the future, providing I don't get distracted during the build-up. My only concern is that I'll dismiss it because of the art style, 'realising' that I watched terrible, embarrassing TV as a young adult. I hope it doesn't turn out that way, but you never know.

Man, this one made me angry.

I love this series a lot and I was so very excited when I heard the film was coming out. I had to wait perhaps 18 months from reading the announcement to sitting down with some good food and a blanket to watch a feature-length, movie-budget presentation of one of my most beloved shows, and boy was that not what I received.

The first 40 minutes of this 90 minute film was re-cap. It was enough to really irritate someone familiar with the show, whilst not being enough to inform a new viewer of what was really going on (to the point that they would grasp what was going on or care about the characters). The re-cap finally ends and the new story begins. It's classic Sora no Otoshimono, with the usual jokes and visuals. Which is fine, in the middle episode of a cour long series. But when it's a feature length film and there are only 50 minutes of new material, totally average jokes and animation of the same quality of the series is not acceptable. If someone unfamiliar with the series was shown the new material from this episode for 20 minutes at a time they'd be unable to distinguish it from a normal episode - which when I've waited 18 months to see it, and there are only 50 precious minutes, is not good.

The film moves onto its climax and a battle scene which is just as uninteresting as all of the other fight scenes in the series (not a strong point that people watch it for) and even misses the target with the outcome of the fight, which relies on you forming deep attachments within 20 minutes of ecchi/comedy for it to have any impact.

If I had discovered this series post-film release then perhaps I would have felt less animosity towards the film, although I don't think I would ever rank it up with the series themselves. The fact that I waited for such a length of time for so little and such average quality while it lasted left me feeling bitterly disappointed. I think it's the first time my mouth has dropped open upon seeing the credits - incredulous that someone actually thought this film would satisfy anybody who had been following the show.

Apparently (I haven't read it) manga followers expressed disappointment at the butchering of the adaptation, so it looks like everyone loses this time.

The only series I watched in full on XBMC. A nice experience but the player was just too dated in subtitle management and its ability to decode 10 bit video.

Beside echoing the sentiments in my series 2 comments, I think this show deserves praise for its central plot (even though it was never expanded upon) of the human-shaped Neuroi. I was actually invested in the story, wondering what sentience was going to be uncovered and where it would lead. Sadly it never came up again in the second series or film where the Neuroi went back to being emotionless enemies hell-bent on destruction.

I don't know how embarrassed I'll feel one day about how much I loved this show, but all I know is I really do. I just hope that when I come to re-watch it in the future I remember how incredibly unsuitable it is to watch or even acknowledge in front of anyone.

I actually don't think the ecchi added anything much to the show at all. I don't think I would rate it any lower if it lacked it, and in some ways might like it more as a series I could possibly share with others one day. The only thing it was good for was for creating more side stories (like the fly-sized Neuroi in the changing room), but they could have existed without it.

Both series have a healthy mix of genuinely fun slice-of-life stories that focus on individuals or pairs of the girls at a time, action and bathing scenes. I don't think any one aspect really dominates it at all. The action is well done, and the Neuroi look surprisingly good despite being incredibly blatant CG, and not imaginative ones at that (besides the one in the first season).

I think the show minus the final episode of the last season is probably an 8. Really solid fun for slice-of-life, and well-done action scenes (though they lack intensity since it's fairly obvious nobody is going to die). The first season did receive this 8 from me, because it lacks the finale of season 2. The last 6 minutes of that episode are just incredible to me. The combination of the situation, the dialogue, the music, the pay off and the art. I've probably re-watched that scene more than any other from any other anime and yet even after all of those viewings I never walk away with any less than a giant smile on my face.

The re-watch value is great, most of the slice-of-life stuff is totally re-watchable, and even the climax of the plot is evidently endlessly enjoyable for me. Probably one of the most re-watchable shows I've seen. It's just a shame about the movie.

While it wasn't terrible, it was disappointing. It had the same issues as the Sora no Otoshimono film whereby it spent far too long introducing characters and setting the scene, leaving room for not much more than one real plot point at the end that was only 2 episodes in length.

The basic theme of the film, besides introduction, was about re-uniting the girls... but for those who've only watched the anime adaptations they were never separated. The last time I saw them they were all together as happy as can be and the next time I see them I'm watching a film dedicated to their reunion as if it should be touching. They weren't gone anywhere near long enough for it to feel like such a happy occasion to me, certainly not one that justifies being the plot of a film. The secondary plot was the introduction of a new character, who was interesting enough... but this isn't a show which lacks characters. There are already too many witches to have fleshed out the current personalities, and yet they dedicate a significant portion of the film on a new one who doesn't really add much to the group anyway. The most important plot progression of the film was about the restoration of Miyafuji's powers (which I think we were all expecting), and this was handled pretty poorly. Miyafuji had a potentially fatal wound and when she learned that she was about to receive help from all of the other Strike Witches her powers returned and her wound healed through deus ex machina, packaged as her wanting to help her friends. The problem with that, besides the obvious, is that her friends are all extremely capable fighters, fighting a boss which wasn't even established to be dangerous. They wouldn't even have needed her help. It didn't excite me with a sense of victory as she saved the day - they would have saved it without her.

The production value was pretty similar to the TV series, I didn't notice anything much at all that looked different. Same CG villains, same magic and glitter etc. The only real difference is that there was no nudity, which considering that's one of the perks of shows like these was disappointing. They did enough up-close underwear to make the unindoctrinated uncomfortable, but no nudity as reward for those who aren't. Perhaps it's a legal issue with nudity and theatres in Japan.

The reason I think I didn't connect with this film is that the focus was completely different. The TV series makes me think of ecchi and genuinely enjoyable slice-of-life adventures (like drunk Sakamoto, Lucchini stealing people's clothes etc), and both of these were missing from the film. It focused on character development, reunions and fighting in a way the series never really did. There were no breaks after the action for goof-offs, and that's exactly the sort of show this was. On top of that the action wasn't particularly gripping, for the most part the girls destroyed all of the Neuroi with ease. The only interesting one was the one Miyafuji fought without magic. I guess it would be very difficult to compete with the second series' finale, but even the first series had a very interesting premise of the human-like Neuroi who sadly didn't make a re-appearance. Tunnelling enemies aren't exactly a great storyline in comparison, and it felt a lot more like an everyday problem that the military would face as the Neuroi mixed up their tactics throughout the war.

If there is a third series which builds upon the characters and developments of this film then I could come around to liking it more, but if this turns out to be the last entry it would be very disappointing. A lot of characters were introduced and using up a lot of screen time, and I hope it was for more of a pay-off than the one we got during the film itself.

I'm starting to think anime movies might not be for me. There's something about the format with no cliffhangers, breaks or shifts in pace that comes across as awkward for me, in a way I don't feel with western TV shows to movies. Almost every theatrically released anime film I've seen I've felt lukewarm about at best.

I can see why people like Summer Wars. The cast is likeable enough, the story has plenty of action and the drama is all pretty real and not too melodramatic. The art style is a little old school for my tastes - it looks more like Ghibli than the TV studio styles I've come to love.

I have two main grievances with the film. One is that there is an overly large coincidence of a very famous avatar in Oz (a system inhabited by 1 billion people, so no small feat) happening to be the cousin of the girl the protagonist is with, and happening to see him playing with his character. The other is a much bigger problem for me, which is that the MC is a typical unlikeable beta male, stammering and bowing meekly at everyone, and lots of stuttering and blushing in front of the female lead, Natsuki. He never really grows out of this. He does rise up and speak against Natsuki's family, but not in a way that stops him obviously being the same beta underneath.

It's also not great, really in any way at all. The enemy isn't one you can really hate or even sympathise with, the action is interesting but not satisfying (and the main battle ends up being a card game the grandmother loved - I hate this sort of cliché twist). The characters are mostly likeable but not loveable, the story is interesting but not that interesting. It all sums up to the feeling that it's "good" or "okay", yet I've heard nothing but praise for it, and it is rated among the highest films on MAL at 8.51. Maybe the hang-ups I have like the art style and MC's meekness are causing me to nitpick the rest of the film, but whatever the reason I'm just not crazy about it like everyone else seems to be.

This show was a landmark for me as the first completed series I downloaded rather than streamed, and in the first three things I downloaded (Ichigo Mashimaro, Durarara and this). I still remember being blown away by the quality, sat right up against the TV back when it was crammed in the corner on the red and green drawers beside my bed.

The series as a whole is actually not that incredible, there's a lot of whiny kids (though it's believable given the circumstance) and the pace drags in the middle, with the little brother (Yuuki) getting distracted by a fairly pointless side-plot about robots. The start and the end are both really, really strong and since those are the two things that leave the most lasting impressions I ended up rating this series very highly.

It was a special moment in my life too, as someone who was used to being very emotionally withdrawn, and only with the introduction of anime had start to embrace being emotional. I marathoned the series in one sitting and it ran over into the early morning of my birthday (because I was downloading as I watched and had to wait for episodes to finish) and there I sat on my 20th birthday with tears streaming down my face, pillow hugged to my chest. I felt so free and genuine in that moment, more so than I really ever had before.

It may not have been the highest quality for most of the season, but the ending was everything I, as a long-time fan of the series, could ever want. Quite possibly the best happy ending I've seen, and so worth the wait. Quite a few of the shows I watched in my beginnings to anime ended up with poor pay off.

Durarara!! never got its sequel, FMA's movie was apparently awful, Kodomo no Jikan's manga ending was a serious letdown after all that time, K-ON!'s movie was mediocre, I didn't enjoy Shakugan no Shana by the time the third season rolled around etc. Zero no Tsukaima is the shining example that came out of nowhere to finish its story and leave me with an ear-to-ear grin as it did so.

I was somewhat excited for this. A chance to see these girls with great personalities shine without Junichi's cowardliness ruining things since he'd be used to interacting with girls now that they were in a relationship. I feel a fool for actually thinking this might happen, in retrospect.

I just don't know why they bothered. With the exception of one of the arcs they were all wrapped up and everyone was satisfied with the result. The storylines (of the first three girls) are all ones which have nothing to do with how close they have become, and are easily interchangeable with the storylines of the arcs from the first season. The only difference is that the climactic kiss scenes lose all of their impact because they've already established their relationship (though you couldn't tell from how they act). It felt pretty much like straight filler with no real deepening of their relationships or even great moments. It was just average material that probably deserved to be omitted from the first season in the first place.